ERP implementation in public healthcare, achievable benefits and encountered criticalities - An investigation from Italy

Enterprise resource planning has been mainly implemented in private industries and there are few inquiries of implementation in public healthcare, particularly in Europe. Hence, this paper aims to enrich the debate concerning public healthcare by investigating one of the first applications in Italy. The research aims at highlighting the benefits brought by the implementation as well as the criticalities encountered. We found that benefits can be classified into four theoretical categories: patients' satisfaction, stakeholders' satisfaction, operations efficiency, and strategic and performance management. Whereas criticalities such as complexity of the project, process reengineering and staff's involvement can impede the implementation. The novelty and value of the paper lie in a new classification of benefits and criticalities concerning enterprise resource planning implementation in public healthcare. The classification is particularly useful for practitioners and managers who want to implement structured enterprise resource planning in complex organisations such as large public hospitals. We concluded with the limitations of this research and the new avenues of research opened.